Homebrew Dark Sun, Dwarf (2024) Species Details

 Short and powerful, dwarves stand between 4½ and 5 feet tall. Their frames are nevertheless extremely massive, and an average dwarf weighs in the vicinity of 200 pounds. Life in the Athasian wastes make them rugged, tanned, and callused.Dwarves seek out meaningful work to occupy their time. A dwarf is never happier than when he has a cause to work or fight for. A stoic race, dwarves love to approach tasks with a single-minded intensity. They devote their very beings to these tasks, laboring for weeks, years, even decades to the exclusion of other endeavors. Once a dwarf is committed to a particular task, it takes a great deal of coercion to make him set it aside for even a limited amount of time. A dwarf strives for the personal fulfillment he achieves upon completing a lengthy, difficult task. A dwarf’s present task is called his focus. No simple job can become a focus. A focus must be a feat that requires at least one week to complete.  A dwarf character reacts to other characters based upon his current focus. If another character is actively committed to the dwarf’s focus, the dwarf considers that character to be a sensible and dependable companion. If, however, a character vehemently opposes a dwarf’s focus, the two are irrevocably at odds until one or the other is dead. There’s very little room for compromise in a dwarf’s mind.  Dwarves are nonmagical by nature. They can’t use wizard magic of any sort, though they can employ priestly magic.

Note: Athas is a cruel and harsh world. As a result the species inhabiting it are more sturdy than the average Dungeons and Dragons species, despite 2024 having removed Ability Score Adjustments on the species section, Athasian species still are more sturdy and as such they receive adjustments to reflect this. The adjustments made have taken into account that an Athasian Character will take a background that will give them additional Adjustments during character creation and said characters will receive them normally as part of the Character Creation Process.

Athasian Dwarf Traits

Creature Type: Humanoid
Size: Medium (about 4–5 feet tall)
Speed: 25 feet
Age: Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they're considered young until they reach the age of 35. On average, they live about 200 years.
Alignment: Most dwarves are lawful, believing firmly in the benefits of a well-ordered society. They tend to follow the established hierarchy of their community, devoting themselves to the regulations it imposes upon them.

As an Athasian Dwarf, you have these special traits.

Ability Score Increases

When determining your character’s ability scores, increase Constitution and Wisdom by 1. None of these increases can raise a score above 20.

Darkvision

You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet.

Athasian Dwarven Resilience

Athasian Dwarves have Resistance to Poison damage. They also have Advantage on saving throws they make to avoid or end the Poisoned condition  and Arcane magic used against them.

Athasian Dwarves are nonmagical by nature. They can’t use wizard magic of any sort, though they can employ priestly magic. Their nonmagical nature gives them a resistance to wizard spells that translates into an advantage saving throws for attacks from magical wands, rods, staves, and spells of a arcane nature that target them directly. So for example, an Athasian Dwarf would have advantage against a Finger of Death but not against a Fireball.

Dwarven Toughness

Your Hit Point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 again whenever you gain a level.

Athasian Dwarven Focus

A dwarf's focus is the central point of its existence.
Nothing is more rewarding to a dwarf than to complete its focus. But no simple job can be such a focus; anything taking a few days to complete is too simple a task to be considered a focus. While working to complete it, dwarves receive a bonus to any task, provided they are directly related to their focus.

Whenever you make an ability check or a saving throw directly related to your focus, you can roll a d4 and add it to the total.

You gain a tool proficiency to a tool related to your focus on character creation.

Work with your DM to come up with a focus that your character begins with, and with a new one every time you finish yours. It shouldn't be an easy or mundane task and it should take at least one week to complete. It could also be linked to your adventures or be something different altogether.

At your DM's permission, you may be bound to earn inspiration whenever you successfully complete your focus.